Conference participant Judith Hand writes ahead of Moving Beyond Militarism & War: Women-driven solutions for a nonviolent world:
When I said I would be attending the Nobel Women’s Conference in Belfast, a member of the planning committee said to me, “It’s going to be huge!” I believe she’s right. I believe this conference, in fact, has the potential to be hugely historic.
The theme is “Moving Beyond Militarism & War: Women-driven solutions for a nonviolent world.” To create a paradigm shift from a culture that uses physical violence to dominate and control others to a culture that rejects physical violence in all it’s forms, including war, would indeed be huge. I am excited and thrilled at this prospect.
In 2007 I attended the First International Women Leaders Global Security Summit at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York City. Over 75 women – current and former heads of state, influential ministers, and leaders of inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations – attended. In its way, this was also an historic meeting. The focus was not on national security, but on global security, on human security; a profoundly important shift. My report on that meeting can be found on my website. I see that meeting and this meeting in Belfast as significant contributions to the rising influence of women in history.
As an evolutionary biologist, I study and write about why women especially have many traits that foster social stability. Mother Nature has shaped women to prefer safe, secure, and socially stable communities in which to bear and rear their children. Avoiding violent physical conflict is for women, as a group, dear to their hearts. It is not something they need to learn. The world now has enough powerful and influential women to catalyze an epic historical shift in how we resolve our conflicts. I believe this Belfast conference will be a major step forward to a positive and nonviolent future.
Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, wives and all the men who love them – for the future of us all, let’s make it happen!
Judith Hand is is an evolutionary biologist, animal behaviorist, novelist, and pioneer in the emerging field of peace ethology. She is also the founder of A Future Without War.